Tim Duy:

[R]eal personal income less transfer payments, [is] a measure intended to strip out some of the impact of automatic stabilizers [like unemployment insurance payments] in the personal income data.

Watch real income fall off a cliff starting in December 2007.

In a way, this is zombie-like behavior, too. Take unemployment insurance. It's supposed to end, right? But where do the jobs come from? Nobody seems to know (though my answer is to hunker down and get off the grid, which might work for places like, oh, Detroit as well). Or are we to be accustomed to a permanently higher "natural" (that is, artificial) unemployment rate, with bread and circuses for the peasants until enough of them die off?

NOTE * The Republicans, of course, argue for no bread and a more rapid die-off, in contrast to the Democrats, who argue for less bread, and a more rapid die-off.